Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

Publication Date

5-11-1970

Abstract

The general purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between communicator sensitivity and conversation effectiveness. Conversation effectiveness was measured in two ways: (1) by the conversation satisfaction promoted by an interviewer in an interview; and (2) by the degree of commitment promoted by an interviewer in an interview. Both satisfaction and commitment were measured in terms of the perception of the interviewees. The specific purposes of this study were to apply the findings of this study to the fields of interpersonal communication and teacher-pupil interaction, particularly in the area of teacher preparation in physical education. Twenty interviewers participated in this study. Ten were determined to possess an extremely sensitive communication pattern and ten were determined to possess an extremely persuasive communication pattern. Each of the interviewers conducted two group interviews, one information-gathering interview and one persuasive interview. Five different undergraduate students from the University of New Mexico served as the respondents for each interview. A total of 200 students participated as respondents. After the interviews each respondent completed two conversation satisfaction scales and a commitment scale. The satisfaction scales indicated the degree to which the respondents were satisfied in the conversation; the commitment scale indicated the degree to which the respondents would commit themselves to actions requested by the interviewers. It was hypothesized that the sensitive communicators would produce significantly greater conversation satisfaction and that there would be a significant difference between the sensitive and persuasive communicators in the commitment they promoted. A factorial analysis of variance and a comparison of individual totals were employed to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that the sensitive communicators did produce significantly greater conversation satisfaction in their respondents in all situations. The persuasive interviewers produced significantly greater commitment in their respondents in all situations except in the persuasive interviews. There was no difference in the commitment promoted by the sensitive and persuasive communicators in the persuasive interviews. The implications drawn from this study were: (1) if a prospective teacher understands how and when to employ the sensitive and persuasive communication patterns, he may become a more effective communicator in teacher-pupil interaction situations; (2) the scale that was used to determine what communication pattern the interviewers possessed was given a strong predictive validation by the findings of this study; (3) the theoretical model of communicator sensitivity was supported by this study; and (4) there was an indication that the sensitive communicators were more flexible communicators than persuasive communicators.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Health Education

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences

First Committee Member (Chair)

Armond Harold Seidler

Second Committee Member

Jim Duff Hughey

Third Committee Member

Harold Eugene Kenney

Fourth Committee Member

Alvin Wendell Howard

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